I was on hackaday earlier this year and I found an article on squishy circuits. I thought making circuits from play dough sounded like a very interesting idea. I did some research into it and it seemed simple enough; different ingredients created different values of resistance and so on. I thought about it, and decided that I had to make some for myself. I threw some together and it worked great! In this instructable I will provide the recipe for conductive dough, insulating dough, as well as some ideas for circuits you can build out of it. I think this has enormous potential in a classroom setting, being able to teach students how circuits work, something that I didn't even understand until about three years ago. I can just imagine a whole class of students showing off their creations that glow, and make cool noises.

I'm just now seeing this. I wonder if you put it in straws or tubing, maybe like IV tubing or the things they put around you head & in your nose to give you O2 when your in the hospital... Something like that, if you put it in it, would it stay wet instead of drying out? If so, you could use any kind of little lights to place wherever on the tubing & poking a small hole to attach the lights & then sealing it so the dough stays wet longer. Then attach power & use it for whatever. Or put the dough in a long tube & use it like an extension cord.

Hi - I'm trying to help my 4th grader design a science project with only one variable. Her original idea was to see whether cookie dough or pizza dough was more conductive (not workable - too many variables). Could you instead suggest two recipes for playdough where only one ingredient differs - and that might give her interesting results as far as conductivity or resistance? What can I say - I'm a musician :).

If i were (and i may be in the process of doing this) to find some bouncy play-doh, kneed in some iron powder so it would be magnetic, and then do this to it, would it still bounce, be conductive, and be magnetic? also, is the iron powder alone enough to make it conductive (the doh was NOT conductive to begin with due to it being a knock-off called bouncy-doh).

I assume changing the amount of Tartar sauce changes the resistance? If so, you could try make colour coded resistors using it somehow. Or show how you can substitute a group of resistors for one larger one. by colour coding them.

Nice stuff! I made some and made a xmas tree with it about ten inches tall, and the wood in the middle was 2 strips of brown and one strip of insulating green twisted to look like a candy cane. and all of the lights were conducting leds off branches, poked in:}Merry late xmas!

That looks like an awesome way to learn circuitry. Good on you for entering it into the Teacher Contest.

I would counsel against traveling with this, as it looks ever-so-slightly like a plastic explosive. An educational plastic explosive, though, no matter how sketchy wires protruding from a plasticine substance may look.